Legacies of conflict

"As Important … in My Childhood as the Catholic Church and the Fight for Irish Freedom":Legacies of Conflict in Maeve Brennan's Cherryfield Avenue Stories Ailbhe McDaid (bio) After many decades of obscurity, Maeve Brennan's writing has recently regained popular and scholarly status.1 The relevance and richness of her work is indicated not only by the popularity of her reissued short stories but also by the attention that her work has attracted from a range of critical perspectives. Thought-provoking attention has been paid to the New York and Hampton contexts as well as the domestic, urban, and suburban Dublin settings of her short stories, to the unheimlich and Gothic tones in her novella The Visitor, and to her presentation of the experiences of Irish migrants to the United States. Angela Bourke's biography of Brennan underpins all this scholarship, as a document both of Brennan's life and of the wider contexts into and out of which she wrote. Brennan's family heritage within the Irish republican movement as the child of Robert and Una, both prominent activists during the Anglo-Irish War and civil war, is regularly mentioned as part of the writer's biography, and this article argues that the aesthetic and thematic legacies of growing up during this volatile period are crucial elements in her writing. Editor William Maxwell declares in his introduction to The Springs of Affection: Stories of Dublin, "her [End Page 79] best stories are always set in Ireland and have no characters that are not Irish"; Brennan's Cherryfield Avenue stories are of particular interest here, although the long reach of childhood disruption can also be perceived in stories based in the United States.2 As Heather Ingman notes in her essay "The Short Story" in A History of Modern Irish Women's Literature, Brennan's stories, with their "emphasis on realism, reminiscence and place," depict a bleak Irish society after independence: "introverted and xenophobic with a narrow definition of femininity."3 Brennan's dissatisfaction with Ireland and its strict confines for women is embedded in the vivid female characters she creates: ranging from malevolent to miserable, Brennan's women share a common experience of extremely limited autonomy. Indeed, many of her stories circle around the petty power struggles that come to define restricted lives, struggles that appear insignificant but are a distillation of the essence of frustrated human interaction. Mary Ramsay's assertion of dominance over her small sphere, the ladies' toilet of the Royal Hotel, is resisted by Miss Williams in "The Holy Terror"; in "Christmas Eve," Delia Bagot smuggles Bennie, her pet dog, into her single bedroom against her husband Martin's knowledge; the fictionalized Una Brennan deals out excessive charity from her kitchen against her brother's advice in "The Old Man of the Sea." The near-pitiful defense of these assertions suggests the contraction of women's sphere of authority in Irish society: deliberate gestures of independence that take place in a domestic setting, underpinned by negotiations between private and public, male and female, and sacrifice and service in each short story. Bourke observes that the actual Cherryfield Avenue house "should have meant independence and stability at last" for the Brennan family, but rather the political climate meant that "lasting, bitter, political division" followed and "began to take its toll on personal happiness."4 Incisively, Bourke further comments that, "for women like Una Brennan, idealistic activists relegated to domesticity by the relentlessly conservative men who now dominated both factions, the new regime brought only disillusionment."5 The struggles of dominance and domain that take place in Brennan's writing can be read as a (regularly failed) negotiation for selfhood, status, and social capital within the family structure and, implicitly, the wider Irish society. This article concentrates on legacies of conflict in Brennan's work, specifically in four stories—"The Morning after the Big Fire," "The Old Man of the [End Page 80] Sea," "The Day We Got Our Own Back," and "The Clever One"—from the Cherryfield Avenue era, the semi-autobiographical stories that depict the Brennan family in the period 1921–28.6 These stories were originally published in the New Yorker and reappeared...

In this paper we argue that in the last 5 decades Rwanda has had a unique migration system which defies the conventional and received wisdom of the rural to urban unidirectional movement. Firstly rural to urban migration has been a residue of the rural to rural movement either regulated by the government or as an automatic relief of population pressure in Rwanda. Secondly the rural to urban movement of population in Rwanda after 1990s has been shaped by the recent events and the legacy of conflict. Thirdly despite the anomalous nature of migration in Rwanda its socio economic implications to urbanization and development have not been analyzed. There has been a lack of clear and detailed policy on urbanization that can mitigate negative consequences of rural to urban migration. Urbanization has been regarded as a desirable development process for development in Rwanda. While analysis should generally show that to be true, the social justice and inequality implications of the process in Rwanda have not been empirically estimated. The paper will address the following issues; How has process of rural urban migration in Rwanda in the last 50 years? What has population pressure and land scarcity affected the rural to urban migration and urbanization in Rwanda? How has a legacy of conflict and events of the late 1990s influenced the rural to urban migration process and what lessons can be learned for post conflict transitions? What are the magnitudes of resources allocation and use between rural and urban areas? Are Rwanda’s towns parasitic on the socio economic benefits and social services delivery in Rwanda? How is the nature of equity consequences of Rwandan urbanization process? What are the policy implications of the Rwandan analysis? It is anticipated that the paper will flesh out areas that need more data and policy investigations and offer lessons to other countries especially those in post conflict transitions. Rwanda’s analysis will offer lessons to economies and societies that have been experiencing population pressure and resources scarcity. Methodologically the paper will offer an approach to rural-urban migration that is multidisciplinary and more comprehensive than the conventional Todaro type models.

In 2012, South Lebanon faced a solid waste management crisis that particularly affected Palestinian refugee communities, which were excluded from municipal service mandates. By means of a case study of the Palestinian community living in Shabriha, this article demonstrates that the vulnerability to the environmental effects of this waste crisis ultimately stems from a legacy of violent conflict. Lebanon's fragile political order and history of protracted war have crucially shaped governance arrangements in Shabriha. These arrangements excluded Shabriha from legal dumpsites and recycling facilities and thereby decisively exacerbated the environmental consequences of the waste crisis. At first sight, Shabriha's resort to indirect, informal and politicised social networks to remedy its marginalisation constituted an effective form of resilience. However, drawing on an entitlements approach to vulnerability, we argue that these coping mechanisms also entrenched Shabriha's institutional marginalisation because they exacerbated its dependence on informal governance structures.

This book presents a rich ethnography of post-conflict social and economic recovery in East Timor following the end of Indonesian military occupation of the territory in 1999. It offers a longer-term analysis of the pathways to rebuilding and restoring local community life, and the budding prosperity that has flowed from participation in spontaneous circular labour migration and the remittance benefits that have followed. Based on extensive comparative literature and field-based empirical research, the book explores the protracted process of cultural and economic revival following a generation-long period of military repression and a sustained struggle for national independence. With a focus on the experiences of Fataluku ethno-linguistic communities in Timor-Leste, the study offers nuanced perspectives on the legacies of conflict and local forms of governance, the revitalisation of customary exchange and ancestral religion. Presenting both an optimistic and alternative narrative in which a traumatised population finds new hope and emergent prosperity, this book highlights a renewed concern with inter-generational well-being and widespread aspirations for prosperity and material benefits following decades of deprivation. It is also an analysis of post-conflict resilience against the odds, illustrating the adaptive possibilities of tradition in the context of globalisation and expectations of modernity. As a major contribution to understanding the emergence and expansion of informal transnational labour migration out of East Timor, this book will be of interest to academics, researchers and policy makers of contemporary Timor-Leste, Southeast Asian Politics, Southeast Asian Culture and Society, Development Studies, Anthropology and Conflict Studies.

For children in many countries, political violence has been a defining characteristic of their lives (Jones 2002). In a recent review of the literature on children, war and trauma, Barenbaum et al. (2004) claim that children are a highly vulnerable and voiceless population during war, and more needs to be done to understand the impact of exposure to conflict on mental health and to bring this to public attention. Northern Ireland has, for the past 35 years, been a country characterized by political violence and societal instability and it has a relatively youthful population (Cairns 1987). Therefore it would be pertinent to review over three decades of research exploring the legacies and impacts of exposure to political conflict on child mental health conducted in Northern Ireland.KeywordsMoral ReasoningChild Mental HealthPolitical ViolenceApply ContextTrauma PsychologyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

In this paper, I examine the BBC radio programme, Legacy. Broadcast each day during 1999, its explicit intention was to persuade Northern Ireland’s publics of the necessity of reconciliation. The programme, aired during the nascent post peace accord period, raised questions about the necessity of the region’s legacy of conflict. Based on an examination of audio and print transcripts of broadcasts, I demonstrate how Legacy’s ability to enact change was constrained by the programme’s format and its political climate. I identify and examine programmatic limitations, including a constrained model of public participation, wide-reaching expectations for storytelling as a model of community engagement and transitional justice, and parallel alignment that permitted the two communities to work alongside each other, rather than with each other. I argue that this cautious approach facilitated public discussions about the long-term effects of the conflict but did not facilitate wide-reaching, societal reconciliation efforts.

NATO’s 1999 Kosovo campaign was a pivotal moment in Russia’s worldview and its post–Cold War evolution, prompting an enduring period of estrangement and alienation from the West. It has had a profound and lasting impact on Russian policy and strategic thought vis-à-vis the international system and the use of force, as well as the balance of power amongst different sections of the country’s foreign policy elite. This article focuses on the enduring consequences of NATO’s intervention for relations between Russia and the West, as well as on how the operation has shaped Russian strategic thought and its views on the character of conflict in the twenty-first century. It explores three themes that emerged in the wake of Operation Allied Force: questions over European security, specifically how it is provided and by whom, as well as Russia’s role; challenges to the existing liberal international order and the norms underpinning it; and the evolution of Russian military thought and defense policy post-1999.

What can be said in the aftermath? Faced with legacies of conflict and the gross violation of human rights, the contemporary discourse of transitional justice has defended the work of confession as a way for deeply divided societies to “come to terms” with the past and move forward. Underwritten by a complex promise of recognition, this call for confessional truth-telling has proven controversial, not least at it risks undermining the testimony of victims and granting undue status to perpetrators. Giving voice to events that may prove unspeakable and performing a subjectivity that may defy accountability, the figure of confession imagined by transitional justice is perhaps best envisioned as a rhetorical question, a difficult inquiry into the response-ability of language in the wake of violence.

Resilience to climate change demands a transformation in social and political relations, but the literature has largely neglected how these are embedded within legacies of conflict. We explore the roles socioenvironmental conflicts play in the scaling up of transformation amidst ongoing settler colonial projects in Indigenous territories in Nicaragua. Drawing on insights from resilience, climate change, and critical agrarian studies, this article reframes resilience as a process produced within socioenvironmental conflicts, placing contestation and negotiation in the centre frame. By re-signifying the meanings and practices of resilience, Indigenous agrarian struggles contribute to ‘eroding capitalism’ and its entwinement with climate change.

This essay will explore the contribution of integrated (mixed Catholic and Protestant) schools to peacebuilding in Northern Ireland and it will highlight some of the challenges ahead in an increasingly diverse society with a legacy of conflict. It draws on and is illustrated by exemplars from the extensive data that I have gathered over more than ten years. The essay will focus on three particular areas – the long-term impact of attending an integrated school, variation in leadership approaches to integration within the schools and emergent models of good practice in response to the cultural diversity of students. A number of theoretical perspectives will be brought to bear upon the data, including social identity theory and political science perspectives on multiculturalism. I will argue that integrated education provides a unique opportunity, in a still segregated society, for children and young people to learn from each other, enjoy sustained engagement and interaction with other perspectives, develop empathy and build long-term friendships across the divide. At the same time, I will question whether the current approaches to integrated education hold equal possibilities for peacebuilding. The context for peacebuilding through education In divided societies like Northern Ireland, emerging from a period of intense community violence, the role of education in peacebuilding is complex and needs to be carefully contextualised not least historically, politically and socially. Looking first at history we see that prior to partition in 1922, the six counties of Northern Ireland shared a general Irish education system based on the National School system.

This paper evaluates the economic performance of the three distinct policy regimes that have been adopted in Serbia since the onset of transition in 2000. The conflict period from 1991 to 1999 determined the starting point of transition and its subsequent realisation. This pre-transition shock was more severe than the shock imposed by the Great Recession in 2008. Besides these shocks, the legacy of conflict, and unresolved privatisation issues, macroeconomic policies also substantially influenced the performance of the Serbian economy. Three distinct policies were implemented between 2000 and 2018 with clearly different approaches: neoliberal, populist, and interventionist. This paper evaluates these policies using quarterly data on 20 macroeconomic indicators classified in 5 groups: macroeconomic stability and domestic, foreign, financial, and labour markets. Regarding the achievements of the three macroeconomic policies, the neoliberal policy is usually blamed for all the deficiencies in the economy in the period between 2000Q1 and 2006Q2. To the contrary, our data indicates that this policy performed the best. The populist policy in the next period from 2006Q3 to 2012Q2 performed the worst. Finally, the interventionist policy, starting in 2012Q3 and evaluated up to 2018Q4, has been inferior to the neoliberal policy but superior to the populist policy. The analysis suggests that apart from macroeconomic policies the starting point of transition matters for a successful economic transition.

Engaging young people in the planning of mental health promotion programmes and initiatives to meet their expressed needs continues to be a challenge for commissioners and providers. This paper reports a study to explore levels of self‐esteem and the main concerns of young people living with the legacy of conflict in the southern area of Northern Ireland, findings from which were used to inform good practice guidelines for service providers. The study highlighted that young people with low self‐esteem worry more, are more likely to engage in risk‐taking behaviour, feel more disillusioned and are less likely to access formal sources of help. Lack of trust, credibility and fears about confidentiality emerged as key barriers to help‐seeking.

Following the Second World War, refugees that were displaced as a result of conflict became a global concern. Many of these displaced persons were resettled under the auspices of the International Refugee Organization. Large numbers of European displaced persons settled in Australia, with significant numbers living in Queensland. The wartime and migration experiences of refugees have the potential to influence settlement experiences, and for displaced persons who settled in Queensland, these prior experiences continued to resonate within the family throughout the settlement process. Many refugee children became separated from their families, and while some were reunited, the process was lengthy and not without its difficulties. The effect of separation and loss experienced by these families dominated the post-war experience. It presented challenges to mothers, children and families as they negotiated the uncertainty of displacement and the potential for resettlement, and affected their approaches to separation and reunification. The separation and reunification of children and families played a significant role in the settlement process, influencing interactions with Australian organisations and the development of familial and social network connections during settlement. The legacy of conflict and separation continued to resonate within families and influenced perspectives of the ongoing settlement process for child refugees.

<p>Zmiana skali postrzegania procesów integracyjnych pozwala na inną ocenę ich przyczyn i przebiegu. Graniczne miasta bliźniacze są tu ciekawym przykładem dla analizy empirycznej. Badanie dyskursu integracyjnego ich struktur administracyjnych daje możliwość zdefiniowania kilku różnych schematów współpracy/integracji transgranicznej. To między innymi staż integracyjny oraz dziedzictwo konfliktu determinują ten proces.</p>

The Other Battle of Algiers